‘The Social Network’ Premiere: Justin Timberlake Talks at the Afterparty

Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield and Justin Timberlake at the Harvard Club for the after party for the premiere of “The Social Network.”

The 48th New York Film Festival kicked off last night with the screening of “The Social Network,” the movie that chronicles the birth of Facebook and the machinations of its co-founder Mark Zuckerberg. Set to ominous music that infuses each scene with a sense of both gravitas and doom, the film has already gotten critics talking about Oscar nominations.

Before the screening, we caught up with Andrew Garfield, who plays Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, the businessman who initially bankrolled the operation and whose shares were later diluted. Garfield, who recently starred in “Never Let Me Go,” will take over the Spider-Man franchise from predecessor Tobey Maguire. He doesn’t expect to drink sixteen egg shakes a day to bulk up though. “I don’t think the idea is for me to be Arnold Schwarzenegger,” he said. “I’m skinny. Spider-Man’s skinny.” He wouldn’t tell us his first choice to play Mary Jane Watson, though Emma Stone’s name has been floated recently.

We also ran into Armie Hammer, who plays both Cameron and Tyler Winkelvoss, the identical twins who originally commissioned Zuckerberg to work on their website. After asking whether Lindsay Lohan inspired him in arguably the best film of her career, “The Parent Trap,” Hammer said that the movie was the source of all his research. “I watched ‘The Parent Trap’ 247 ½ times. I can say all the lines backward.”

After the screening, guests headed to the Harvard Club, fittingly, to celebrate, which made us wonder whether Harvard fundraisers besiege Zuckerberg for donations even though he dropped out. Justin Timberlake, who plays Napster founder and Facebook president Sean Parker in the film, rocked dark frames and gamely posed for pictures with fans. When we asked him about his foray into film, fashion, and restaurants he told us, “I’m jumping around so people don’t find out how moderate I am. I didn’t want people to find out I wasn’t the best singer, so I became an actor.”